IDN-InDepthNews

ARMAMENTS2016-05-112023-07-10

UN Working Group Urged to Assist in Banning Nukes

Analysis by Jamshed Baruah

GENEVA (IDN) – The powerful message of a joint statement by diverse faith groups, calling for abolition of nuclear weapons, has been strongly backed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s reaction to President Barack Obama’s decision to visit Hiroshima on May 27.

Obama would be the first sitting U.S. President to visit the Japanese city during the G-7 economic summit that was annihilated by the first ever atomic bomb, dropped by the United States on August 6, 1945. It was followed by the second bomb that devastated Nagasaki three days later, killing a total of more than 200,000 people.

Ban “very much welcomes” Obama’s decision to visit Hiroshima, UN Spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. “For the secretary-general, one of the enduring lessons of Hiroshima is the need to abolish nuclear weapons once and for all,” he added.

“We would hope that the visit is again a global message on the need for nuclear disarmament, which is something that the Secretary-General is calling for,” the Spokesman said.

ARMAMENTS2016-05-102023-07-10

Obama Should Meet A-Bomb Survivors, and Ban the Bomb

Viewpoint by Kevin Martin*

WASHINGTON, D.C. (IDN-INPS) – President Barack Obama plans to be the first sitting U.S. President to visit Hiroshima during the G-7 economic summit May 26-27 in Japan. Hiroshima is an impressively rebuilt, thriving city of a million people. The city was obliterated by the first atomic bomb, dropped by the United States on August 6, 1945, followed by the second bomb that devastated Nagasaki three days later, killing a total of more than 200,000 people.

Remarkably, many Hibakusha, atomic bomb survivors, are still alive today, though they often suffer from various radiation-caused illnesses or other physical ailments 71 years after the bombs were dropped.

Eighty-three-year-old Shigeko Sasamori was a young girl when the “fire bomb” (the words “atomic bomb” were not yet known) exploded a mile from where she stood. In the unimaginable chaos that engulfed the city after its devastation, Shigeko and her family were relatively fortunate, as their collapsed house barely missed crushing her mother to death, and after a period of severe disorientation and separation, Shigeko was reunited with her parents.

Global Partnerships2016-05-102023-07-10

Japan Moves Prestigious Africa Conference to Kenya

Analysis by Kingsley Ighobor

NEW YORK (IDN | Africa Renewal) – To many Africans, Japan is a country acclaimed for economic and technological prowess. Johnson Obaluyi in Lagos, Nigeria, says Toyota, the ubiquitous automotive manufacturer, comes to mind whenever Japan is mentioned. For Kwesi Obeng, a Ghanaian living in Nairobi, Kenya, it is technology. Beageorge Cooper, a consultant for the World Bank in Monrovia, Liberia, says she thinks of Japan as “a former world economic power”.

But it’s a different matter when Africans are asked about Japan-Africa relations. “I will have to read up on that,” says Cooper. “I think we are importing their Toyotas,” recollects Obaluyi. “They support research into tropical diseases in Africa,” says Obeng.

Such scant knowledge of the full gamut of Japan-Africa relations hardly reflects the true picture on the ground, considering that it was as recently as 2013 that Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announced a whopping $32 billion five-year support for Africa’s development projects.

OPINION2016-05-102023-07-10

Obama Must Say a Profound Sorry for Hiroshima

Viewpoint by Jonathan Power

LUND, Sweden (IDN-INPS) – We were standing in Hiroshima looking at a stone wall. All there was to see was a shadow of a man. It had been etched into the wall at the moment of his obliteration by the blinding light of the first atomic bomb.

Olof Palme, prime minister of Sweden, stared hard at it. An hour later he gave a speech as head of the Independent Commission on Disarmament of which I was a member. “My fear”, he remarked, “is that mankind itself will end up as nothing more than a shadow on a wall.”

President Charles de Gaulle of France once observed, “After a nuclear war the two sides would have neither powers, nor laws, nor cities, nor cultures, nor cradles, nor tombs.”

What if, contrary to the received wisdom, it was shown that nuclear weapons played no role in the surrender of Japan at the end of World War 2, as has been their justification? Perhaps the terrible acts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are no worse, despite their two hundred thousand deaths, than many other scathing memories of war waged against mainly civilian populations. Then we would have to start a big rethink of the value of nuclear arsenals.

UN INSIDER2016-05-092023-07-10

NEWSBRIEFS: Canadian Initiative – UN Peace Fund – ESCAP

OTTAWA – The Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, announced May 9 that Canada will host the Fifth Replenishment Conference of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Montréal, Québec, on September 16, 2016.

The Prime Minister also announced that Canada is pledging CAD785 million to the Global Fund for the next three years, a 20 per cent increase from its previous pledge three years ago. This investment will make a significant contribution to the ultimate goal of saving an additional 8 million lives and averting an additional 300 million new infections by 2019.

Global Partnerships2016-05-092023-07-10

Aid Frozen as Mozambique Reels Under ‘Iceberg of Debt’

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – Canada has joined the IMF, World Bank and several other countries in cutting aid to Mozambique over concerns about the country’s finances.

CTV News reported on May 9 that Mozambique had more than $1.3 billion in undeclared debts, which raised concerns among donors over its financial management. Fourteen donor agencies and countries, including the U.K., Portugal and Switzerland, are freezing a portion of their development assistance.

Canada’s high commissioner in Mozambique said on Twitter on May 9 that general budget support has been frozen – that’s aid that goes directly to Mozambique’s government. Development assistance provided to NGOs and multilateral organizations like the UN remains in place.

In the midst of freezing aid, banks that saw dollar signs in the developing economies of Africa are being blamed for a looming fiscal crash in Mozambique over so-called “tuna bonds”.

Emblematic of the easy lending by western banks, 24 fishing boats meant to be a modern tuna fleet are gathering rust in the port of Maputo.

UN INSIDER2016-05-092023-07-10

UN Launches Global Awareness Campaign on Climate Action

By Rita Joshi

BONN (IDN | UNFCCC) – In run-up to 2016 UN Climate Conference in Morocco, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is focusing on ‘Global South’, and has launched a global public awareness campaign to spotlight these game-changing commitments, including the many which are happening in the developing world.

According to the UNFCCC, based in former West German capital Bonn, climate action by cities and companies and by regions and investors is continuing strongly since the December 2015 Paris climate change conference with some 50 new actions posted on the UN portal which was set up to showcase private sector and local authority ambition.

Ranging from South African hospitals group Netcare Ltd to Dutch banking group ING, the new commitments join over 11,000 already registered on NAZCA — the Non-State Actor Zone for Climate Action, established in 2014 at the request of the Government of Peru.

Peace & Security2016-05-092023-07-10

Praises Roll in for Re-elected Equatorial Guinea President

NEW YORK (IDN | GIN) – After the disputed re-election of the longest-serving ruler of Equatorial Guinea in April 24 polls, opposition leaders and local organizations decried it as “not credible.”

According to the election results supervised by a minister of his own party, President Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo swept the polls with nearly 94% of the vote.

But most known members of the opposition were either barred from participating or boycotted the elections in protest. An African news team – Africa24 – was reportedly detained for hours at the airport despite having the proper paperwork from the Information Ministry.

With his victory, the 73-year-old President Obiang – who has already served 37 years – will serve another 7-year term.

Because the country is oil-rich, the government has friends around the world. Critics, however, point to the country’s poverty index – ranking 144 out of 187 countries on the United Nations’ 2014 Human Development Index.

UN INSIDER2016-05-092023-07-10

G77 Wants More in South-South Cooperation in Climate Change

Analysis by J Nastranis

NEW YORK (IDN) – The Group of 77 (G77) and China, comprising 134 developing nations, has welcomed a new United Nations initiative that will build partnerships to help developing countries to assist other developing countries implement the Paris Agreement on climate change and the 2030 Development Agenda.

But the G77 and China chairperson Virachai Plasai, Thailand’s Permanent Representative to the UN, has stressed that “South-South and Triangular Cooperation are not a substitute for, but rather a complement to, North-South Cooperation”.

He added: “As South-South and Triangular cooperation are dear to the heart of the Group, we wish to see the momentum created by this initiative to promote South-South and Triangular cooperation be carried forward in other important areas apart from climate change.”

Termed the Southern Climate Partnership Incubator (SCPI), the UN Secretary-General’s new initiative aims at fostering partnerships among the ‘Global South’ in the areas of renewable energy, climate resilience, smart cities and big data application.

UN INSIDER2016-05-082023-07-10

Enabling Civil Society to Monitor Development Agenda

By Jutta Wolf

BERLIN (IDN) – Strategies to support and protect civil society to engage in the implementation and monitoring of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were the centerpiece of discussions at a conference in Berlin.

Jeffery Huffines, UN Representative of CIVICUS World Alliance for Citizen Participation, questioned the extent of civil society engagement in preparation of the first set of voluntary national reviews to be presented at the High-level Political Forum (HPLF) on Sustainable Development July 11-20. He stressed the 2030 Agenda’s participation rights should be used to open up spaces for civil society at the regional and national levels.

HPLF is UN’s central platform for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals, adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on September 26, 2015.